3 ms·

The Future of the Internet Is Flow

36 points by T-A 11y ago

adventured 11y ago
The foundation of this article is set up on a very poor premise: > The Web was a brilliant first shot at making the Internet usable, but it backed the wrong horse. It chose space over time. The conventional website is “space-organized,” The Web didn't back anything, and it certainly did not choose space over time. The wording there is the dead give-away to the poor premise: "conventional website." Someone building a site or service can easily choose to develop primarily around time rather than space. I've done this countless times in the last decade for varying reasons, as probably have most people that were building Web services during that time. You use what makes the most sense for what the service needs to accomplish. In just the last five or so years, what can be done with the Web has been drastically boosted, there is no time limitation. That the Web can just as easily accommodate a time or space or both approach, is one of the many reasons why it wins. In other words, may the best approach win - the Web will be happy to enable whatever that happens to be.
jondubois 11y ago
I think it's a very broad article written from a consumer's perspective, but I do think realtime APIs are the future of data on the internet. There are several reasons beyond mere user-convenience that make it so. Realtime data is more efficient to deliver to clients - Also, all new front-end frameworks encourage consuming data passively (data binding) as opposed to explicitly requesting it on every page change. It's a natural progression. I think REST APIs will stick around for a while, but having worked with both paradigms, I have no doubt that realtime data channels are the future of data consumption.
- hliyan 11y ago
  I agree. I think the concept of a 'page' is being slowly replaced with two-way data streams (for example, SPAs that rely on WebSockets).
- harperlee 11y ago
  Perhaps both things will remain: providers of fixed resources to be consumed (the space that the article points to, where I can find more content than I can consume in my lifespan), and services that provide curation (as facebook), that have a more tangible need for that bidirectionality. At the beginning of the web, the emphasis was more in the share-all-resources side of the equation; whereas now, "you need to have a platform, content is provided by users" is the norm. This does not need to stay like that, and as authors and users in general wise up about how content is created, who owns it, and where the value is, perhaps, there will be a comeback. We are seeing an increase in walled newspapers, for example(1). There are initiatives to support creators, as kickstarter or patreon. Social networks "gentrify", and younger generations show that having a large user base has a lot of inertia on cohorts, but perhaps not so much across generations. Why shouldn't Facebook pay the promqueen that drives hundreds of new users into a platform? So perhaps that's a trend that will reverse itself. (1) Not a very good example because traditionally papers are both curators and creators, but still. Also, all creators decide what to create and what not, to a point.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
saint-loup 11y ago
I sincerely find the ideas of Gelernter and Freeman utterly fascinating, but take note they've been talking about it for twenty years. See their academic page and this article from Wired www.cs.yale.edu/homes/freeman/lifestreams.htmll & http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/fflifestreams_pr.html http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/fflifestreams_pr... Lifestreams have a strong smell of vaporware and Xanadu syndrome.
- kawera 11y ago
  Lifestreams were/are a facinating idea but I think Gelernter and Freeman weren't really doers. I've used Lifestrams for about 2 years and it was far from stable and had a lot of bugs under Solaris. Apple's TimeMachine UI[1] seems somehow "inspired" by Lifetream's[2]. [1] https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare/images/en_US/osx/tm_starfield.png https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare... [2] http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2009/03/17/lifestreams/ http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2009/03/17/lifestreams/
codingdave 11y ago
I hope their premises are wrong - I come to the internet for tools that improve my life. I try not to live my life via the info streaming to me. And I hope that the trend to do so will subside once the next generation grows up with it being pervasive, and not a novelty. I think the internet is an amazing communication, organization, and research tool. My future vision for it would be for it to stop also being an entertainment tool, and for us all to re-engage with the natural world and the people around us. And my technology work tries to follow that - I look for jobs and projects that simplify and streamline one's life, and I reject projects that tie people more to their computers.
- PopeOfNope 11y ago
  80% of people are consumers, 20% are producers. Throughout history, that percentage has remained more or less constant. I don't think the next generation's usage of the internet is going differ much from the current generation. 80% of people are going to use it for the information streaming to them. Those of us who use it for other reasons will most likely retreat back to the non-web internet, like IRC, as a way of avoiding the consumer masses. Or the consumer internet may evolve beyond http to a network of peer to peer native mobile apps all streaming data back and forth to each other, no web server needed.
- rndn 11y ago
  Beautifully said and matches closely my intuition and how it is depicted at the beginning of the film Her.
oliv__ 11y ago
This is bullshit. The web being "space organized" is simply a digital representation of analog life itself. Everything we live in and interact with is "space organized". Everything is independent. Everything is its own world. Nobody wants a unified "life feed" with everything mixed up. Not only is it lame and confusing but it is also very impractical. Think of how many notifications you have on any given service right now: probably too many already. Putting them all in one place is just hell. I don't know I mean this idea is just plain ridiculous. How boring would it be having only one destination where everything had the same format? Different websites and different formats are all different canvases that allow for individual creativity and innovation. This is what makes the web interesting and ever evolving.

36 points by T-A 11y ago

The foundation of this article is set up on a very poor premise: > The Web was a brilliant first shot at making the Internet usable, but it backed the wrong horse. It chose space over time. The conventional website is “space-organized,” The Web didn't back anything, and it certainly did not choose space over time. The wording there is the dead give-away to the poor premise: "conventional website." Someone building a site or service can easily choose to develop primarily around time rather than space. I've done this countless times in the last decade for varying reasons, as probably have most people that were building Web services during that time. You use what makes the most sense for what the service needs to accomplish. In just the last five or so years, what can be done with the Web has been drastically boosted, there is no time limitation. That the Web can just as easily accommodate a time or space or both approach, is one of the many reasons why it wins. In other words, may the best approach win - the Web will be happy to enable whatever that happens to be.

jondubois 11y ago

I think it's a very broad article written from a consumer's perspective, but I do think realtime APIs are the future of data on the internet. There are several reasons beyond mere user-convenience that make it so. Realtime data is more efficient to deliver to clients - Also, all new front-end frameworks encourage consuming data passively (data binding) as opposed to explicitly requesting it on every page change. It's a natural progression. I think REST APIs will stick around for a while, but having worked with both paradigms, I have no doubt that realtime data channels are the future of data consumption.

hliyan 11y ago
I agree. I think the concept of a 'page' is being slowly replaced with two-way data streams (for example, SPAs that rely on WebSockets).
harperlee 11y ago
Perhaps both things will remain: providers of fixed resources to be consumed (the space that the article points to, where I can find more content than I can consume in my lifespan), and services that provide curation (as facebook), that have a more tangible need for that bidirectionality. At the beginning of the web, the emphasis was more in the share-all-resources side of the equation; whereas now, "you need to have a platform, content is provided by users" is the norm. This does not need to stay like that, and as authors and users in general wise up about how content is created, who owns it, and where the value is, perhaps, there will be a comeback. We are seeing an increase in walled newspapers, for example(1). There are initiatives to support creators, as kickstarter or patreon. Social networks "gentrify", and younger generations show that having a large user base has a lot of inertia on cohorts, but perhaps not so much across generations. Why shouldn't Facebook pay the promqueen that drives hundreds of new users into a platform? So perhaps that's a trend that will reverse itself. (1) Not a very good example because traditionally papers are both curators and creators, but still. Also, all creators decide what to create and what not, to a point.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

saint-loup 11y ago

I sincerely find the ideas of Gelernter and Freeman utterly fascinating, but take note they've been talking about it for twenty years. See their academic page and this article from Wired www.cs.yale.edu/homes/freeman/lifestreams.htmll & http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/fflifestreams_pr.html http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/5.02/fflifestreams_pr... Lifestreams have a strong smell of vaporware and Xanadu syndrome.

kawera 11y ago
Lifestreams were/are a facinating idea but I think Gelernter and Freeman weren't really doers. I've used Lifestrams for about 2 years and it was far from stable and had a lot of bugs under Solaris. Apple's TimeMachine UI[1] seems somehow "inspired" by Lifetream's[2]. [1] https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare/images/en_US/osx/tm_starfield.png https://support.apple.com/library/content/dam/edam/applecare... [2] http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2009/03/17/lifestreams/ http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2009/03/17/lifestreams/

codingdave 11y ago

I hope their premises are wrong - I come to the internet for tools that improve my life. I try not to live my life via the info streaming to me. And I hope that the trend to do so will subside once the next generation grows up with it being pervasive, and not a novelty. I think the internet is an amazing communication, organization, and research tool. My future vision for it would be for it to stop also being an entertainment tool, and for us all to re-engage with the natural world and the people around us. And my technology work tries to follow that - I look for jobs and projects that simplify and streamline one's life, and I reject projects that tie people more to their computers.

PopeOfNope 11y ago
80% of people are consumers, 20% are producers. Throughout history, that percentage has remained more or less constant. I don't think the next generation's usage of the internet is going differ much from the current generation. 80% of people are going to use it for the information streaming to them. Those of us who use it for other reasons will most likely retreat back to the non-web internet, like IRC, as a way of avoiding the consumer masses. Or the consumer internet may evolve beyond http to a network of peer to peer native mobile apps all streaming data back and forth to each other, no web server needed.
rndn 11y ago
Beautifully said and matches closely my intuition and how it is depicted at the beginning of the film Her.

oliv__ 11y ago

This is bullshit. The web being "space organized" is simply a digital representation of analog life itself. Everything we live in and interact with is "space organized". Everything is independent. Everything is its own world. Nobody wants a unified "life feed" with everything mixed up. Not only is it lame and confusing but it is also very impractical. Think of how many notifications you have on any given service right now: probably too many already. Putting them all in one place is just hell. I don't know I mean this idea is just plain ridiculous. How boring would it be having only one destination where everything had the same format? Different websites and different formats are all different canvases that allow for individual creativity and innovation. This is what makes the web interesting and ever evolving.